Durang's 'Vanya and Sonia' by PTC (2nd review)

I’m trying to figure what element she’s most annoyed by. Probably it’s the character of a sassy maid who practices voodoo, quite out of place in this old Bucks County milieu. On the other hand, she might be referring to a pretentious play-within-a-play about a molecule, supposedly written by Vanya. Or it could be Vanya’s tirade about licking postage stamps in which he incessantly makes the point “I miss the past.”

Durang’s sporadically funny, occasionally touching play does make you wince during those scenes. Apparently playwright Durang thought it would be cute to create a character named Cassandra who, like her namesake in Greek mythology, had the power of prophecy and the curse of never being believed. But that’s not the point of the maid’s utterances here, where her prophecies are greeted only with bewilderment.

Siblings Sonia (Deirdre Madigan) and Vanya (Kraig Swartz) share a lovely home surrounded by birch trees in Bucks County. They’ve taken care of their parents, now deceased, and rarely leave the home. Their movie actress sister Masha (Grace Gonglewski) rarely visits but sends money to cover all the expenses.

Vanya’s rant against the younger generation is played by Swartz as a tour de force of anger. I believe it’s a heartfelt summation of Durang’s own complaints and therefore should be played seriously. Yet I suspect that audiences like the scene better when Vanya exaggerates and makes it a comedic turn. (By the way, I am a traditionalist myself, but why would anyone want to return to the days when we had to lick those foul-tasting postage stamps?)

Carrying on

The connections of these characters to Chekhov’s are superficial, and Durang’s plot is propelled by the intervention of outsiders, like Cassandra, and a neighbor called Nina and a young stud named Spike, rather than arising from within the personalities of the family members. True, in Chekhov’s Seagull, Nina is a young aspiring actress. But, rather than having a dramatic arc leading to tragedy, this Nina is just a tool. Also, it’s a stretch to observe her meet the family for the first time and become so clingy.

The pleasures of this piece are the opportunities for the actors to carry on royally, especially when they portray the anxieties of the sisters — Masha fears the onset of middle age and Sonia, who has never had a social life, fears being alone. Another joy is the marvelous set by David Gordon, which captures the affluence of Bucks County living.

That comfortable residence reminds me of another flaw in the script. Masha speaks of a fat acting paycheck that will cover a year of mortgage payments. Yet this is the childhood home of Sonia, Vanya, and Masha: They lived there for 45 years, and surely the mortgage was paid off a long time ago. That careless error is symptomatic of Durang's cavalier attitude toward both characterization and plot.

For a review by Dan Rottenberg, click here.

For Steve Cohen's review of Three Sisters, click here.